What is Unified API?

So, you've landed here and are trying to figure out what a Unified API is. Fortunately, you've stumbled onto the right place.

A Unified API (also known as a "UAPI" for short) is an API that connects multiple distinct – yet related – services together under one umbrella. UAPIs connect multiple different connectors (also known as apps) together under a common schema. Why might you want this? Let's take an example:

Let's say you work at a financial institution and your company regularly underwrites loans of all types to small businesses. Many of the businesses you underwrite to use online storefronts like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce (Magento), Amazon, Wix, SquareSpace, etc – to name a few. Your company wants to get an accurate picture of your client's financial picture (i.e. store revenue, number of orders, etc).

To solve this, you'd need to build atop every one of these integrations – something that is time consuming, tedious, and most importantly, difficult. Each integration requires domain expertise to best understand which fields map to what.

With Alloy's Unified API, we map all these endpoints to a common model so you can easily build and launch integrations at scale – with ease.

The graphic above highlights how this all works.

As you can see, Alloy's Unified API maps all fields to a common model and performs a regular sync to ensure our cache maintains the structured data in sync with the 3rd party connector at all times.

We refer to "you" as the "ISV" (also known as Independent Software Vendor). As an ISV, you will implement the Unified API into your product. Your clients (i.e. the folks who need to connect their online storefronts to determine how large a loan they're eligible for) are known as "end users".

The second an end user connects their storefront, Alloy's UAPI kicks off a series of actions. First, we perform a historical sync to fetch up to two years (this can be configured for longer durations) of historical data. We also subscribe to all relevant events to ensure any incoming data changes are captured. Simultaneously, Alloy's UAPI also maps the individual connector's fields to a common model we've defined. This data is then stored in the Alloy UAPI Cache.

When an ISV queries the Alloy UAPI to fetch the financial data needed to underwrite the loan, all that data is instantly accessible at your fingertips. And because Alloy's Unified API supports common models across popular apps, you can quickly build integrations to multiple applications with virtually no additional work.